Grant-ing Primeval
by SleepiePanda
Summary: Atlantis Grant never had a normal life. She moved to England to get away from her past, but now Atlantis once again is running from prehistoric monsters that wish to kill her. The only positive side of her new career choice is the people she meets along the way or more importantly a certain soldier that she meets. (Part 1 of the Grant Anomaly Chronicles)
1. Intro

Atlantis Grant, aka Laney, never had a normal life. From her name to her background she was bizarre. Laney's mother died in childbirth and her father, Alan Grant, was forced to raise her. He named her Atlantis after the great city. Laney spent her entire life living on dig sites, being homeschooled by her father and later by her father's girlfriend, Ellie. By the age of thirteen Laney knew every prehistoric creature there ever was. It was to no one's surprise that she later went to school to become a paleontologist like her father.

At the age of only seventeen Laney had went to the first ever dinosaur island with her father and Ellie. The memories of the island followed her and like her father she dove right back into her work. At the age of twenty three Laney went on the second island with her father and once more barely survived the horrors of real dinosaurs.

This time, after coming back from the second island, Laney didn't want to just dive back into her work or simply ignore the press always hunting her down. Laney wanted to be away from the memories of the island and that took her to England.

She went to England to escape her past and to just deal with fossils, but of course she never stood a chance. Dinosaurs followed her like bad luck and so at the age of twenty five she discovered an Anomaly with her coworker Nick Cutter and friend Stephen Hart. It was from that moment on that her life changed.


	2. One

"All I'm saying is that the two of you really need to get out there more." Atlantis Grant, Laney, has lived in England for a year now and she has adapted quite well to the country. Laney met Nick Cutter when she applied for a job at the university. He had been the one that did the interview with her. She now works beside him along with Stephen Hart and the three have became great friends since, but every friendship has their downfalls. Stephen Hart was a bit of a player, he has a girlfriend, but unfortunately for her she lives pretty far away, which means Stephen is free to flirt with whoever he wants because she'll never know. But with Stephen being the player that he is it leads to him always wanting to set Nick and Laney up with someone.

"Stephen, we're fine with being alone." Laney tells him as she shakes her head at Nick. Nick was technically married, but his wife disappeared eight years ago, so I think it's safe for him to start dating again, whether now is the time or not. Laney also had just gotten out a relationship a year ago and was quite ready to start over, but so far she has found no guy that she found even remotely interesting.

"Laney, you are a beautiful girl of 25 and I'd hate to see you end up alone." Nick chuckled as he pulled into the parking lot of the school.

"Now that is why I hate you." Laney says with a laugh as she gets out of the truck.

"Oh, and why is that?"

"Because you insult me with a compliment." Nick laughs and the three start up to the school.

"How on earth did I insult you?"

"Nick?" Laney questions, causing the man to smile at the two of them.

"You pretty much told her if she doesn't start looking then she'll end up alone." Stephen frowns and shakes his head.

"You twist my words." He tells them, causing them both to laugh.

"Professor Cutter!" A boy runs through the crowd, trying to reach the three. He looks to be only in his early 20s and held the look of a rather geeky guy.

"You said it." Laney tells Stephen, none of them hearing the boy.

"Yeah, but I didn't mean it like that."

"Professor?" The boy reaches the group, getting their attention, but he spilled everything in his arms.

"Careful there." Nick tells him before he continues on with the others. "But I do agree with Laney." Stephen groans.

"Of course you do, you always agree with the pretty ones." Laney giggles and shakes her head.

"Stephen, you need to think before you say." Nick tells him, causing her to giggle even more.

"You two are unbearable."

"Professor! Professor Cutter!" The boy reaches them once again, causing them to stop. "Connor Temple." Connor says as he holds out a hand. Laney cocks her head at him with confusion at his words.

"Sorry never heard of it." Nick tells him as he looks at Stephen. "I think you want Archaeology. I want you to go around up there to your right and keep walking; it's on your left." Nick and Stephen point over to a building just ways away from them.

"No, it's not... it's not a place, it's my name... I'm one of your students." Laney raises an eyebrow and eyes over the boy, but finds that she has no idea who he is and has never seen him in any of Nick's classes.

"Really?" Nick asks, he too not recognizing him.

"Uh-huh."

"Well... why... why don't I recognize you?"

"Well... uh... I've never actually turned up for the seminars." Nick, Laney, and Stephen all look at each other before turning and heading into the building and going into Nick's and Laney's office. Not far behind them Connor follows him in.

"Don't touch anything." Nick tells Connor as he and Laney goes to their separate desks. Laney puts her coat on the back of the chair, leaving her in just a flower pattern tank top, a pair of dark skinny jeans, and dark brown leather boots that went up to her knees. "This is my laboratory technician, Stephen Hart." Nick tells Connor, causing Stephen to nod his way. "And my coworker Atlantis Grant."

"Wait Grant?" Laney sighs as she sits down at her desk, which was much neater than Nick's. "As in the same Atlantis Grant that got to go on that Dinosaur theme park island?" Laney looks at him dead in the eye.

"Yes and if you ask anymore of that subject then you won't be walking out of here alive." Connor gulped before turning back to Nick, who had picked up the mess that was on his desk and just chucked it all into the trash.

"Actually, that's my dissertation." Connor tells Nick as he looked at the trash. Nick looks down and picks up the pink folder, causing Connor to nod. "Yeah, you see I argue that all life on Earth derived from organisms carried here by alien spacecrafts. It's pretty sexy stuff." Laney bites back a laugh as Nick chucks the paper back into the trash. "It's a work in progress actually."

"Tell me what this is?" Nick says as he picks his fossil up and shows him it.

"A fish." Laney rolls her eyes and sorts the papers on her desk into piles.

"Obviously, it's a Sarcopterygian... There's no trace of them in the fossil records for over 70 million years, and then suddenly one of them pops up in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Totally inexplicable in the modern evolutionary terms." Laney smiles as she hears the enthusiasm in Nick's voice. "See, Darwin provides most of the answers, it's the pieces that don't fit that interest me."

"See, that's why I was wondering if you'd seen this?" Laney looks over and sees Connor holding out a newspaper to Nick, who passes the fossil over to Stephen and takes the paper. "Some sort of gigantic, undiscovered predator." Laney walks over just as Nick passes the paper to Stephen, a look of clear annoyance on his face.

"It's a hoax." Nick says as Laney looks over Stephen's shoulder to read the paper. The front of paper shows a very blurry picture of some creature with the title 'Monster Hoax or Truly Beastly' written above it.

"Oh no, no, no, no. This... This is the real thing." Connor tells them as he takes the paper back.

"Connor, you should get out more." Nick took his seat behind his desk. "Go to a bar, meet a nice girl. Life will seem a lot less confusing." Laney chuckles and goes back to her own desk.

"I've already got a girlfriend." Laney gives Connor a doubtful glance before finishing up her organizing. "Sort of." Laney rolls her eyes and begins to look through each pile of papers. "That's not really the point..." Connor went on to say. "There's an eyewitness, claimed to have seen it."

"People have claimed to see the Lock Ness Monster. That doesn't mean they have." Nick tells Connor.

"Well not now, obviously... It died years ago. The government, they took the body away and covered the whole thing up." Laney looks over at Connor and frowns.

"He's mad isn't he." She whispers to herself as she shakes her head.

"This is a Hoax... forget it."

"Your wife wouldn't have ignored it." Laney felt as if she could no longer the breath. The air became thick with tension and as silent as a library.

"My wife was a serious scientist." Nick tells Connor, his voice thick with held back emotions. "She wasn't some gullible monster hunter."

"Sorry." Connor says, a bit guilty and embarrassed by it all.

"It's okay." Nick's voice was still strained, as if fighting back his emotions.

"I just thought you might want to check it out that's all." Connor says as he puts the newspaper back in his bag. "It's not like the Forest of Dean is far away though."

"The Forest of Dean?" Nick questions as Laney sighs.

"If we leave now... we'll be there by lunch." Stephen says the words Laney was thinking, causing her to stand up and grab her jacket.

"Come on." She sighs. "If we don't go then we'll only regret it." And with that they all quickly gathered their things and headed back out the door.

The group arrive at the scene of the... crime? The scurity guard was already waiting for them when they got there. The group got out of the truck and made their way to the man. "I'd just finished my rounds when I caught a glimpse of it on the monitor." The guard tells them as he stands in front of him.

"What did it look like exactly?" Laney asks him.

"It was dark." The man tells her. "It was hard to see, it was also very fast, hard to see or remember any details about it." Laney nods as the group made their way to the big truck.

"That's fine. Thanks for trying." The man nods as Connor takes in the scratch marks that dug into the truck.

"Can you imagine how much force it took to rip this thing open?" Connor asks as he looks over at the truck. The whole side of it was ripped right open like a tin can. "Look at the size of the marks. If you want my opinion, I think it's..." Nick gives Connor a look, causing him to go silent and frown. "You don't do you?" Laney shakes her head, mouthing 'no'.

"Well, if I found these gouges in the wild, I'd be certain we were looking for a large predator." Stephen says, trying not to smile at Laney. Laney smiles at him and cocks her head to the side.

"But we're in the Forest of Dean." Nick tells Stephen, stopping Laney from asking her question.

"So..." Laney says, causing Connor to look at her confused. "Foreigner, don't understand."

"The biggest thing in the Forest of Dean are wild boar." Laney frown and looked over at the forest.

"Oh."

"It was huge and fast. It was gone across the yard in a second." The guard tells them as he looks at them all.

"Well, there's blood." Stephen says as, he runs his fingers over the bed of the truck. Laney frowns and walks over to where he stood, holding his fingers in front of his face. She takes his fingers to see for herself and runs her fingertip over his, feeling the substance between her fingers.

"Yeah... it's blood." She says with a frown as she looks over at the truck. "But why is there blood?"

"Stephen, Laney, come give me a logical explanation for this." Laney and Stephen look at eachother before pulling away from the truck.

"It's a hoax, obviously." Stephen tells Nick as they make their way over before seeing the fence that keeps people out of the forest was currently riped to shreds. "Just a difficult one to pull off."

"Can I say something?" Connor asks as Nick stepped forward and went closer to the fence and forest. This was where his wife had went missing eight years ago. "Is he alright?"

"Helen Cutter came to this area eight years ago to investigate a creature sighting... she disappeared into the forest... the body was never found. Just a backpack. No blood. No clues. Nothing. She just vanished." Laney sighs and walks over to Nick.

"I'm sorry, Nick." She tells him as she wraps her arms around him. "It's going to be okay." He sighs and wraps his arms around her.

"Thank you, Laney, but I'm fine." Laney rolls her eyes and looks up at Nick.

"Liar." He chuckles and kisses her temple.

"I know, but I will be... I need a drink first." Laney laughs and rests her head against his chest.

"Whatever makes you feel better." Laney says as she pulls out of his arms, taking his hand and leading him back towards the others. "We're going to look in the forest, try to find any clues on what did this, but first Nick's gonna get a drink, come on." Laney tells them as she leads Nick to the truck once more.

Nick goes and gets a drink, while the rest sit in the parking lot, waiting for Nick to return back. Connor was showing Stephen his dorky prehistoric computer set up. Laney found it funny, but she also found it boring, so she decided to jump up and sit on the hood of the truck, staring off into the forest, letting her mind wonder.

Laney never regretted moving here, but apart of her does feel bad about how she left things in America. Her father understood her need to leave and was all to great to her. Ellie was amazing, they cried together a lot when Laney was leaving, but Ellie was always the best mother Laney could have after her own died. Her younger half siblings were so sad, but they let her go. The hardest goodbye had to have been with her two year boyfriend, Billy. Billy had went on the island with her and got hurt badly. It's what really scared her and messed her up. It made her just want to leave all the past behind. Billy hadn't wanted to let her go, but he had no choice in the matter. Laney knew he would never want to go to England with her and she knows that he would always be a constant reminder of her past, which is why she had to leave him and leave his engagement ring. It hurt a lot and some days she still hurts when remembering what she left behind.

Billy had been there after she came back from the first island, but she couldn't be there for him after the second. Guilt ate at her every day, but from what her father tells her Billy is doing better, even started dating again. It's time Laney lets go of the past fully and allows herself to move on.

"Laney?" Laney looked over and saw Stephen standing beside her, looking at her with concern.

"I'm fine."

"Thinking about Billy?" She sighs and slides down off of the truck.

"Yeah, but really I'm fine. Are we going?"

"Yeah, a woman from the home office is going to join us." Laney nods before heading to the door of the truck.

The five of them walk through the forest moments later. Stephen was leading the group with his trusty map, while Connor had a compass out, but Laney really didn't know why when he was way in the back and Stephen's in the front with her. Behind Laney and Stephen were Nick and Claudia, both in front of Connor. "If there really were some creature around here, wouldn't the journalists have found it by now." Laney hears Claudia asks Nick.

"They wouldn't know what they were looking for." Nick answers simply.

"And you do?" She asked.

"Kinda. I have seen Stephen track wounded animals through the rain forests fro up to ten days at a time."

"Not to mention wrestle an anaconda and saw a whale." Laney rolls her eyes at Connor's words as he walks past Nick and Claudia and now walks beside her. The three of them get farther from the other two and come across something that causes Laney's eyes to widen. In the tree was a cow, it was dead and looked very badly killed. Laney saw something like this before and it was at a place that she never wanted to return to.

"Cutter!" Stephen yells back to Nick as Laney stares up at the cow.

"Okay." Nick said as he walked over. "Now I'm getting interested." He looks at Laney, who forces a smile, not wanting to seem crazy or paranoid in front of her friends.

"Professor..." Nick looks away from Laney and over at Connor, who had his compass out in front of him. "The compass is going haywire." Laney frowns and takes the compass from him, but sure enough the needle was spinning around in a berserk manner.

"What the hell?" Nick frowns and looks at it before looking back up the tree. "Something is seriously wrong."

* * *

The group walks through the woods before Laney came upon something that made her eyes widen. It was a Scutosaurus. Laney knew that dinosaurs were extinct, but that didn't stop Jurassic Park, so whose to say this isn't another attempt at it and that is what Laney was afraid of. "Don't move." Nick says from beside her, causing her to give him a confuse look, but he wasn't looking at her, but instead in front of them. She looks back and this time she sees a woman standing before the dinosaur.

"Is it real?" The girl asked.

"Some kind of experiment, maybe. Hybrid, throw back." Nick said. "Who are you?"

"Abby Maitland. I'm a keeper at Wellington Zoo."

"It's a reptile, five or six tonnes at least. Large supratemporal bosses. Huge oesteoderms on its back." He said as she shined his torch. "It must be some kind of anapsid."

"A tortoise." Abby said in surprise. The Scutosaurus roared, causing everyone to step back. "Stay in its field of vision... you're making him nervous." Laney frowns and steps forward. It was a real dinosaur, she knew it was, but she was very fearful about where it came from.

Nick glances at her, the unanswered question in his eyes, 'could this be Hammond's work', but all Laney could do for an answer was to shrug unsurely. "I was right. There was a dinosaur in that warehouse." Connor took a picture of the dinosaur, causing the dinosaur to get a bit more nervous. Laney looks over at Connor as Claudia rips the phone out of his hand.

"Whatever it is, it's classified until I figure out what the hell to do about it." Claudia snaps. Laney frowns as she sees something come out from behind the tree. It's a green small lizard. She kneels down and the lizard runs over to where she was kneeling.

"Bloody hell there's two of them." Stephen says as he kneels down beside Laney.

"Where did that come from?" Nick asked. "Hammond?"

"I'll call him, but I don't know." Laney says. "He normally doesn't do this so close to people, he's not that nuts." Nick sighs as he looks up at the bigger dinosaur.

* * *

Nick, Abby, and Claudia leave to go talk to the boy who had the lizard and to also call Claudia's boss, while Connor and Stephen stayed behind and watched the dinosaurs. Laney went just a bit further in the woods to call Hammond. "Hello?" Hammond answers in a rather groggy voice.

"It's Laney Grant, I'm sorry to call you so late, but I need to ask you a very important question and it could not wait until the morning." She tells him.

"Ah, Laney, so good to hear from you. How's the family?"

"Mr. Hammond, I'm not calling just to a bit of catching up with you. I need to know if you are doing anything more with the dinosaurs, you know making more."

"Now Lan-

"Mr. Hammond it's very important. Are you still keeping them on the islands or are you bringing them into the country?"

"Laney I know the park didn't go as plan, but I would never put them on the main lands, it's not enough space for them. I'm still working on the islands." Laney sighs, she knew Hammond wouldn't be that stupid. "What is this about, Laney. Is something wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong Mr. Hammond, I just couldn't sleep. I was thinking about the island again, you know the island always worried me."

"I understand, but-

"It doesn't matter. I got my answer and I feel better. I really must get going but thank you for your time, Mr. Hammond."

"But Laney-

"Bye." She hangs up with a sigh before heading back over to the group.

"Nothing?"

"He didn't do it. This isn't his work. He's not that stupid." Stephen nods as he leans his head back against the tree.

"That's good to hear."

"Stephen! Laney!" Nick yells as he runs through the woods with torches, along side Claudia and Abby. The dinosaur began to move nervously and as they got closer to it, it took off through the woods.

"Woah." Laney says, moving back just in time not to be trampled.

"Woah... where's it going?" Connor asks as he glances over at them.

"Let it go! Is scared! Let's see where it thinks it's safe." Nick says as they all took after it. Laney rounded the corner in time to see it run through a shiny ball of light.

"What the hell?"

"Where's it gone?" Claudia asked as she looked around, her breath coming in short and her voice a bit scared.

"Home." Nick says simply. "It has gone home."


End file.
